The Arab League observer mission to Syria--sent under an agreement
with the Syrian government to withdraw forces from the cities, release
all political prisoners and allow monitors and journalists free movement
throughout the country--has utterly failed and should not be extended.

After the initial one-month mandate for the mission expired, Arab
foreign ministers met in Cairo Sunday to discuss next steps.
Surprisingly, the league--known in the past for its knee-jerk defense of
Arab unity at the cost of its people's rights--proposed a plan under
which President Bashar al-Assad would transfer power to a deputy and
start negotiations with opponents within two weeks. The proposal was
predictably rejected outright by the Assad regime as interference in its
internal affairs. Unfortunately, the league also agreed, despite Saudi
Arabia's withdrawal from the mission in protest of ongoing regime
violence in Syria, to extend the mandate for another month and beef up
the number of monitors sent to the country. But in the first month of
the mission, opposition figures reported that more than seven hundred
people have been killed at the hands of the government in continuing
clashes throughout the country. Given its failure so far to halt the
government crackdown, the league should have rejected any extension of
the observer mission and vowed to bring the Syrian crisis before the
United Nations Security Council for further sanctions.

Assad recently gave a rambling two-hour speech at Damascus University
in which he brazenly denied reality, mocking Syrian protestors as
traitors and terrorists doing the bidding of foreign hands and vowing to
defeat the "conspiracy" while claiming he had never ordered Syrian
security forces to fire upon them. Assad also offered sharp criticism of
the Arab League for "failing" the region. In November, the league
suspended Syria, a founding member, for its continuing bloody assaults
on largely peaceful demonstrators.

As many analysts predicted, it seems increasingly clear that Assad
allowed the monitoring mission merely as a means to buy time until he
could figure out a way to crush the resistance. The mission has been
woefully understaffed and overtly controlled by the Syrian regime since
its inception on December 19, and the number of observers never climbed
above 165, nowhere near the many hundreds needed to cover all the
restive spots in the country. Moreover, the Syrian government did not
allow international journalists to accompany the teams and dispatched
security escorts to "monitor the monitors." Given the credible reports
of opposition figures being killed, beaten or detained (including two
Kuwaiti monitors who were attacked near Latakia) while the league's
observers have been in country, it is evident that the mission failed to
bring about a halt in the violence.

It is now incumbent upon the Arab League to officially terminate the
mission and refer the matter to the United Nations Security Council. The
league brought much credit to itself last spring when it voted to
support international military intervention to protect Libyan civilians,
and its suspension of Syria raised hopes that the organization was
finally acting in the interests of Arab people rather than an amorphous
Arab unity. It should not squander its newly won credibility by
continuing the charade of an impotent observer mission.

MORE ON SYRIA

Any draft resolution introduced by the Arab League in the Security
Council must, of course, attract the support of China and, most
crucially, Russia. Moscow's tacit or outright backing is key to creating
an effective, united international front against Damascus. Without it,
Syria is likelier to descend into full-blown civil war, a scenario that
all involved would like to avoid.

A previous draft resolution in the Security Council was nixed by
Russia, angering the United States, the European Union and others who
have called upon Assad to step down and have imposed strong economic
sanctions. Even Turkey, a stalwart Syrian ally and trading partner,
threw over its "zero problems with neighbors" policy and signed on to
the sanctions program. It is past time for Russia, one of Syria's
closest allies and the main obstacle to even tougher measures imposed on
the Assad government, to see the writing on the wall and join the
international effort to isolate and punish the regime.

Russia has extensive interests in Syria: a long-standing military
relationship that provides a deepwater naval base in the Mediterranean
port town of Tartus, billions of dollars in arms contracts and
investments in Syria's infrastructure, energy and tourism industries.
For Russia, the alliance with Syria gives Moscow some geostrategic
weight in a region where its influence has diminished markedly since
Egyptian president Anwar Sadat expelled Soviet military advisors in
1972. It is not hard to see why Russia has continued to support Assad
even as it encourages him to open talks with the opposition.

But while Russia continues to back and arm its ally, it must also be
cognizant that Syria is descending into a civil war--one that Assad and
his Alawite-minority supporters are unlikely to win. The Arab League and
the Syrian opposition, therefore, should persuade Moscow to change its
position. In the end, what matters to Russia is the protection of its
interests, not the person of Bashar al-Assad. Arab League member states
and the Syrian opposition need to offer Russia reassurances that its
interests will be taken into account in any future Syrian government.

As the Syrian crisis bogs down with few solutions on the horizon, a
hard-hitting UN Security Council resolution calling for further
sanctions and an arms embargo is the next obvious step. While it may
seem improbable at the moment that the Arab League can convince Russia
to support such a resolution, this has been a year of surprises in the
Middle East, and the league is in the best position to make the case to
the Kremlin. Regime change in Syria is inevitable. The sooner Russia
acquiesces to that reality, the more lives and suffering will be spared.

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Writing used to be a solitary profession. How did it become so interminably social?

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Even when a dentist kills an adored lion, and everyone is furious, there’s loftier righteousness to be had.

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The Wall Street Journal’s eyebrow-raising story of how the presidential candidate and her husband accepted cash from UBS without any regard for the appearance of impropriety that it created.

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There’s no way this man could be president, right? Just look at him: rumpled and scowling, bald pate topped by an entropic nimbus of white hair. Just listen to him: ranting, in his gravelly Brooklyn accent, about socialism. Socialism!

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During the multi-country press tour for Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, not even Jon Stewart has dared ask Tom Cruise about Scientology.

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An attack on an American-funded military group epitomizes the Obama Administration’s logistical and strategic failures in the war-torn country.

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Some say the so-called sharing economy has gotten away from its central premise—sharing.

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